Eighteen months ago, we took a look at Guy Davenport's essay on"Hobbitry," which appeared in his book, The Geography of the Imagination. Davenport speculated that J. R. R. Tolkien's Hobbits had their origins in stories he heard from Allen Barnett about country folk in Barnett's home in central Kentucky. Jonathan Wilson, Jeremy Boggs, and David Bratman's research (scroll down) suggested that the argument was dubious -- neither proved nor disproved.

Davenport's speculation seems no more unlikely, however, than Dumneazu's argument for the Appalachian roots of the Klezmer revival. Joel at Far Outliers and Nathanael at Rhine River put me on to this unlikely connection. And, if you don't check out some of Dumneazu's links, you're missin' the good stuff, like the string band, Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters. When I could talk him into it, my Confederate grandaddy used to sing"Old Joe Clark" and"Are You Washed in the Blood" was evangelical comfort food. If Nathanael will bring his mandolin to the next AHA convention, I'll dust off my cloggin' shoes and we'll put a whoop and a holler into the conventional mix.

Tom Holland,"The Obliteration of a Nation," TimesOnLine, 14 January, reviews Martin Goodman's Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations.

Hieronomo at Blogging the Renaissance wonders how Civil Warriors could have won a Cliopatria Award for Best Group Blog if they can't even get the Civil War in the right century. Hey, they've probably even got it on the wrong land mass! Anyway, there's still time to enter BtR's Woodcut Caption Contest 6.

We are only now learning the depths of the Suez Crisis of 1956. News that France and Great Britain actually discussed the possibility of a merger in September of that year caught everyone by surprise and unseated historians on both sides of the Channel. The BBC reports that"Henri Soutou, professor of contemporary history at Paris's Sorbonne University, almost fell off his chair.""I completely fell off my seat," said Richard Vinen, a French historian at King's College in London."It's such a bizarre thing to propose." Thanks to Sharon Howard at Early Modern Notes for the tip.

Alex Lichtenstein,"Recounting Little Rock via History and Memory," Chicago Tribune, 14 January, reviews Elizabeth Jacoway's Turn Away Thy Son: Little Rock, the Crisis That Shocked the Nation. Whenever I see her at the SHA convention, Betsy reminds me that I gave her a very hard time in graduate school. I like to think that, with this book, she's given me her answer. It is, by any measure, a major contribution to the history of the South and the civil rights movement. Thanks to Alfredo Perez at Political Theory Daily Review for the tips.

History Carnival XLVI is up at Investigations of a Dog.

My family and I had a wonderful visit this past weekend with history department and other friends at UNC, Chapel Hill. As I said on Friday, we had to return to Atlanta for a Sunday evening interview with ABC Nightline's Vicki Mabry about the new exhibit of the Martin Luther King Papers at the Atlanta History Center. The interview should air tonight. Just between you and me, however, the funniest part of the interview probably won't be aired. The producer wanted a shot of me sitting at my computer and then getting up to consult a book from my bookshelves. So, we do that and so far, so good. But, then, I pull the book from the shelf – and with it comes out the longest, most elaborate, cobweb you have ever seen in your life. The damned thing hovered momentarily in the air – as networks of accumulated dust will do – and, then, it settled down over and around my head and white sweater. So much for"immaculate house"! There was no ignoring it; there was no disguising it. We all burst into laughter at my predicament. This is a working office, I told them. I can't be bothered with dusting it occasionally!

Finally, many thanks to my colleague, Manan Ahmed, for hisgoodwork at Cliopatria this past weekend.

At the Pocahontas Island, residents are worried that this 200 year old historical black community will disappear off the maps. I couldn't find it on Google Earth.

Speaking of disappearing, the historic Fort Pitt is being buried under a Mall or maybe a parking lot. Either way, don't despair, as the historian quoted in the article is particularly cheerful:"Muller said there are many examples of historically significant things being buried and later unearthed. For example, in the 1980s, archaeologists working on a highway project in Pittsburgh unearthed perfectly preserved wooden doors that had been buried when a canal was filled in to make room for the railroads more than 100 years earlier, he said." See? We can dig those parking lots up later to find signs of the French retreat.

And if we do end up with a mall, there will be tours.

Gandhi Ji is having a renaissance in India - due, in large part to a hit bollywood movie. I realize that this sentence should properly be explained by a 3,000 word post, and maybe it will be on Monday. In the meantime, you can read Khuswant Singh's review of a new book on Gandhi Ji - by his grandson: Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire.

Biography seems perfectly fine on the Amazon/NYT charts but I don't see many dissertations in the UMI during the last five years that look biograph-ish. My own, dissertation, i.e., is a historiobiography. w00t.

After taking a break for the holidays and the AHA convention, history resumes with the return of History Carnival on Monday 15 January. Its XLVIth incarnation will go up then at Investigations of a Dog. Send your nominations of the best in history blogging since 15 December to Gavin Robinson at hc46*at*4-lom*dot*com or use the form.

The new Common-Place is up -- with lots of good things!

On Wednesday, the National Archives and Footnote.com jointly announced an agreement to digitize documents in the National Archives. Some 4.5 million documents, including the Papers of the Continental Congress (1774-89), the Mathew B. Brady Collection of Civil War Photographs, records of the Southern Claims Commission, the Name Index to Civil War and Later Pension Files, and the Investigative Case Files of the Bureau of Investigation (1908-22), are now online and searchable at footnote.com. For more information, see: Miland Brown's World History Blog.

I'll be away from Cliopatria for the weekend to attend a memorial service for George B. Tindall in Chapel Hill on Saturday. But I'll be back in Atlanta for an interview for ABC's Nightline on Sunday evening. We'll talk about the new exhibit of the Martin Luther King Papers at the Atlanta History Center. In the meantime, however, my colleagues at Cliopatria will keep you informed and provoked.

Alun Salt,"Ithaca Found?" Revise & Dissent, 10 January.

"Matthew Jones at Yahoo News introduces ancestorsonboard.com, a project of the Great Britain's National Archives. It digitizes and makes searchable the manifests of all outward bound passenger ships leaving the British Islands between 1890 and 1960. It could be invaluable to researchers in family history. Thanks to Dale Light of Light Seeking Light for the tip.

Thanks to Robert Townsend at AHA Today, you can compare the original and the amended texts of the AHA's resolution against"free speech zones" and its resolution against the war in Iraq. The latter resolution will be submitted to the AHA membership for ratification. Without a majority of votes in that plebiscite, it will not be considered an official statement of the AHA. Similarly, at AHA Today, Elizabeth Grant posts the text of a letter from Barbara Weinstein, Linda Kerber, and Arnita Jones to Atlanta's Mayor Shirley Franklin to protest the arrest and incarceration of Felipe Fernández-Armesto. The matter is under local investigation.

My friend, Dimitri Rotov at Civil War Bookshelf [scroll down; his permalinks aren't working.], apparently believes that I was too dismissive of claims made about quilt/codes in Hidden in Plain View. Dimitri should consult the discussions I referenced on H-Slavery (though there have been earlier ones, the most recent begins here) and apparently thinks I've made up my mind before all the evidence is in. Well, yes, I'm doubtful that George Washington was a transvestite in private moments, but I'm willing to look at your evidence of it.

Finally, Ed Darrell at Millard Fillmore's Bathtub wants to know how many states have pledges of allegiance to the state flag. Texas law requires public school students to repeat pledges to the United States' and the state flag every school day. So far, Ed's got the text for pledges in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas. Alabama's another one, Ed:"Flag of Alabama I salute thee. To thee I pledge my allegiance, my service, and my life." And then I wash my mouth out with soap.

I've been meaning to post about the death of renowned feminist (and later, anti-feminist) historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, who died last week at the age of 65. Her obit in the Chronicle of Higher Ed is here.

It's been a hard couple of years; so many renowned feminists have died in the past 24 months: Dworkin, Butler, Friedan; most, like Fox-Genovese, died far too young. Of course, the feminist blogosphere has devoted rather less attention to the passing of the last of these. We are always hardest on former allies who apostasize, after all, whether that apostasy leads them to the left or, as in Fox-Genovese's case, over to the Catholic Right.

Like Frederica Mathews-Green, Fox-Genovese began her career as a secular feminist. Her work on slave and white women in the antebellum south was universally praised. Perhaps more importantly, she helped establish one of America's very first doctoral programs in Women's Studies at Emory University, where she remained as professor until her death.

In later years, however, she and her husband became serious, conservative Catholics. She became, like Christina Hoff Summers, a very public anti-feminist, rejecting her old positions and celebrating a radically different world view, grounded in her own sincere conversion.

Her passing was marked by the right; read this touching memorial from Robert George at National Review.

Apostasy is a funny thing, especially for those of us who make our living in the world of ideas, religion, or politics. The history of the academy is littered with examples of men and women who achieved a sterling reputation linked to one set of ideological principles which they later repudiated. Some move from left to right (think of the David Horowitzes of the world); others move from right to left (think of Barry Goldwater, or the"evolution" of certain Supreme Court justices.) This evolution or apostasy is usually accompanied by shrill cries of disappointment and betrayal by those who feel abandoned, and an effusive welcome from the former enemies whom one has now joined. Friendships are often severed in the process, though in Fox-Genovese's case, that seems to have happily not been true.

All sides in an ideological battle like to welcome adult converts. Both left and right, feminists and anti-feminists, tend to flatter themselves with the notion that wisdom and maturity will invariably lead discerning folks to their particular position. It's immensely satisfying to construct a narrative of personal growth that suggests that one could be one thing when one was young and coltish, but become something else once one"really understood how the world works." Those who join our battle late in life, particularly when they have switched sides after a period of reflection, are often more celebrated than the" cradle believers." Ideologues on left and right love the idea that someone has"tried out the other side" and"evolved" to seeing things our way.
Some of us demonize our ideological opponents, but most of us tend to think of them as well-intentioned and misinformed rather than genuinely malicious."If only they really understood as we understand", we say to ourselves,"they'd come round." When on occasion they do, abandoning their old beliefs for new ones, we rejoice. In the same way, when a former ally leaves us for"the dark side" (be it traditional Catholicism or secular feminism), we lament their"fall". We assume that they were"tempted", or underwent some sort of psychic trauma from which they couldn't recover. We tend to pathologize apostasy when it takes a colleague in the struggle away from us, because most of us can't accept a legitimate intellectual or spiritual reason why a fellow soldier in the culture war would switch sides.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese was an important American historian, and an important figure in the Women's Studies movement. That in her later years she turned her back on many of her earlier positions is not evidence that those positions were flawed, immature or inadequate. But by the same token, her transformation into a Catholic traditionalist doesn't vitiate the importance of her earlier work, and it doesn't diminish the obligation of those of us who share the commitments she abandoned to thank her for her service and to celebrate her life.

Sitting in the audience at certain AHA panels is a good way to come up idle thoughts and conjectures about scholarly history.

So I was thinking while daydreaming through a number of presentations on slavery and colonialism about something an undergraduate professor of mine used to say to those of us who were in the anti-apartheid movement at my campus. Largely just to tweak us, he'd ask when he could expect our protests against the Arab conquest of North Africa and the Mongol invasions of Asia and Eastern Europe.

The older I get, the more I think this jibe poses a genuinely interesting question.

I don't think it's mere hypocrisy that most of us tend to adopt a moral posture with varying degrees of explicitness around histories that are strongly connected to the post-1500 expansion of Western Europe. There are serious analytical reasons to regard the modern era as something non-comparable to what came before it, in moral as well as economic, political and cultural terms. There are serious reasons to see big moral as well as substantive differences between something like Atlantic slavery after 1600 and slavery in African societies before that time.

But at the same time, I'm not always clear that the common moral complaints against European colonialism, especially the ones made more or less in passing, through strong adjectives or implicit postures, have that degree of specificity. I heard a number of speakers, for example, admonish their listeners to recall the loss of life or the physical suffering that resulted from imperialism. That makes sense as a complaint from the recent past against the distant past in general, but I'm not sure it distinguishes the behavior of the Spanish in the New World from the behavior of the Mongols in Samarkand.

Moreover, in the last two decades, historians have done a markedly good job of showing how some of the roots of global modernity lie in structures of early modern and late medieval global exchange. In fact, we've come to understand the role of the Mongols in particular as preparatory or contributory, though as much through the accidental dissemination of bubonic plague as by the direct creation of persistent political or economic practices. If you follow the recent arguments of some theorists of global history like Andre Gunder Frank, you might even come to see the rise of the West as nothing more than a short-term perturbation of a 5,000 year old world-system.

I'm ok with a general sense that the present is morally superior to much of the past, but I increasingly feel that there is an odd rhetorical boundary implied by many conventional statements of this superiority, as if before 1500, it no longer clearly applies. As I said, this isn't much more than an idle thought that comes from the rhetorical trimmings that surround many historical arguments. When you get down to the substantive heart of such arguments, they're often much more careful and precise.

This is, yes, a plug for yet another new journal, but it's concerned with issues that I feel are vitally important for academics in all fields (perhaps especially for us rather backward humanities types, though it transcends disciplinary boundaries). Ever felt frustrated about how few people are able to read the publications you sweated and agonised over? Or by how much important academic publishing is out of your reach because of your institution's tiny library budget? Open Access Research is"a peer-reviewed, open-access journal that will enable greater interaction and facilitate a deeper conversation about open access", and the editors are looking for submissions for the first issue in August 2007 (deadline 31 March 2007) and onwards, to be published 3 times a year.

More details here.

If you don't know what Open Access is about yet, here are good places to start:

Open Access Overview
Open Access News, Peter Suber's blog.